Hi Austin,
Thanks for the feedback. I've figured out the comments on my blog now and will open them up when I've finished here.

I agree with you about the early intervention. My son had a lot of developmental checks through his family day care and had contact with the pediatrician who oversaw his treatment for asthma. We were at the GP every other week for a couple of years yet none of these people either noticed or explained my son's giftedness. Either it was hidden by his motor and language delays (not to mention astigmatism and inability to concentrate on anything) or they must have not wanted me to know.

The before-school test of eye-sight picked up both the giftedness and the vision problems but the consequences of the giftedness were not explained. No one seemed to link behavioural issues with giftedness, or imagine that a child could have adhd AND be gifted. DS's strengths meant that people refused to entertain that he also needed intervention- for dyspraxia and ADHD. Looking back, my son's giftedness ended up having far greater impact on his life than his problems but only because I was able to address those problems.

When my son was finally diagnosed at age 5 with both adhd and high giftedness and sent for an assessment with a speech therapist, the therapist said that he didn't want to identify my son as gifted because gifted children get too much pressure on them. This was not personal as the guy didn't know me from Adam, it is just a stereotype many people hold.

Ironically, when I took the diagnosis back to the GP who had probably seen more of my child than most of the professionals he told me that he had always known that he had ADHD but had thought that it would not do him good to be diagnosed and labelled! That he had known what I was going through the whole first five years and chose never to validate it was amazing.

And it was often a challenge to deal with some of the pediatricians (we moved around a lot) who thought my son was missing out on being socialised by being homeschooled. Not so much that they would not help us but just as something to nag me with each visit. The last one we saw just before my son turned eighteen told him to go back to university. He didn't seem to get that my son had already been to university and had been working as a full time software developer for a year or more.

I know these people mean well but it would be nice if the professionals we are dealing with were educated about high intelligence. So I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say.

regards
Rosie